


Lorne's Day Off

by oriolegirl



Category: Sports Night, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-30
Updated: 2010-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-08 13:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriolegirl/pseuds/oriolegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lorne was hoping for a quiet day off...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lorne's Day Off

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [A Ficathon Walks Into A Bar](http://sabinetzin.dreamwidth.org/208891.html); my prompt was "Evan Lorne walks into a bar and meets... Isaac Jaffe!" Many thanks to my beta [](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=silvercyanne)[**silvercyanne**](http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=silvercyanne) who beats my tenses into submission.

Major Evan Lorne has a precious day off in San Francisco. Atlantis is still parked out in the Bay while the IOA dithers about whether or not to let them take her back to the Pegasus Galaxy. He's pretty sure it will happen, if only because General O'Neill will get tired of the bickering soon enough and would rather Colonel Sheppard was in another galaxy so the General can pretend Sheppard is playing by the rules.

He'd been hoping to spend the day painting but the weather, much like the IOA, isn't cooperating. Plan B is to spend most of the afternoon sitting on a bar stool, watching sports. Lorne pulls open the door of the bar and groans. Of course the place is full of Marines - he can tell, even when they're out of uniform - and of course he recognizes most of them. He lets his eyes pass over them and takes an empty stool at the bar. He nods at the older man seated on the next stool. After getting the attention of the bartender, he settles in, waiting to see who's going to lose the round of rock, paper, scissors he can see taking place in the corner.

Before too long, Sergeant Takeda sidles up next to him.

"Major."

"Sergeant, it's my day off. You don't do anything too outrageous, I'll pretend you're not here."

Takeda nods, then glances back to where his compatriots are sitting. "Mud people level, sir?" he asks.

Lorne winces, remembering the week-long hangover from the festivities on PX7-311. The people there lived in mud houses and seemed to be perpetually covered in a layer of mud but their version of beer was about a thousand times stronger than anything produced on Earth.

"Think flower festival." The annual flower celebration put on by the Lanaians resulted in an embarrassing desire to festoon one's person - and one's teammates - with leis, but the euphoric high wore off quickly enough. "Just don't decide to come back with new tattoos or anything. No one wants to waste time documenting that."

"Yes, sir."

The sergeant goes away and Lorne sighs. Chances are still good there'll be new tattoos before Atlantis flew away, but hopefully there won't be too many.

"You in the Navy, son?"

Lorne looks over at the man next to him. "No, sir. I'm in the Air Force. I just have the pleasure of working with some Marines."

"That's a bit unusual, isn't it?"

"We have," Lorne pauses, trying to think of a vague adjective, "an unusual posting."

"My son-in-law is in the Navy," he says after a sip of what looks like scotch and a glance at the basketball game being shown on the TV over the bar. "My wife and I are out here visiting the grandchildren. There are three of them now."

"Congratulations." It seems like the thing to say, though Lorne wonders why the guy is sitting in a sports bar instead of out sightseeing with his grand kids.

As if he read Lorne's mind, he says, "It's a school day. And my damned-fool son-in-law doesn't have cable. How any man can call himself a sports fan and not have cable is beyond comprehension."

"I guess these days most things are on the Internet."

"I suppose that's true. Glad I retired before it came to that."

"You were in the sports business?"

"Started out in radio. Ended up in cable."

"Yeah? What network?"

"CSC. I was managing editor of Sports Night."

"That was a great show. I used to watch it all the time. With Dan and Casey, right?"

The man smiled. "Yeah. Those boys did good things together."

"They're not still on the air?" When he gets a quizzical look, Lorne explains, "We don't get cable where I'm posted."

"They are, but not on the same show. Casey's still at CSC but Dan moved down to DC to work on an ESPN show that's filmed there." He looks at his watch. "In fact, it's about time for Dan's show."

"Then we should get the bartender to change the channel."

The distinctive sounds of chairs being pushed back and a table being turned over makes Lorne look over his shoulder and sigh. Apparently his Marines (and he marvels again that he has Marines) have taken exception to something another group of Marines have said and now that the table was out of the way, the fists were about to start flying. "Another time, perhaps," he says. "It was good talking with you."

"You, too, son. Good luck with the Marines."

"Thank you, sir." He slips off his stool and starts for the corner. So much for his day off.


End file.
